If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are
perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today,
I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms].
-- U.S. Representative John Dingell, 1980
Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons.
If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.
-- Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the LA Times 15 Oct 1992
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I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on keeping
a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of the criminal
class.
-- David Mohler, 1989, on being denied a carry permit in NYC
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The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we
decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will
win and the decent people will lose.
-- James Earl Jones
“Boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and
drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns.”
-- U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
NCJ-143454, "Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse," August 1995.
To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're
putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form.
-- Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1988
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The biggest hypocrites on gun control are those who live in upscale
developments with armed security guards -- and who want to keep other
people from having guns to defend themselves. But what about
lower-income people living in high-crime, inner city neighborhoods?
Should such people be kept unarmed and helpless, so that limousine
liberals can 'make a statement' by adding to the thousands of gun laws
already on the books?"
--Thomas Sowell
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Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and
strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a
woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.
-- L. Neil Smith
According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of
the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that
only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured,
as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These
percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively
comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if
they used other means of resistance.
-- G. Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research,"
Law and Contemporary Problems 49, no. 1. (Winter 1986.): 35-62.
[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under
the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In
that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in
prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at
fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake."
-- Charlton Heston, FOX News Sunday, 18 May 1997
Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will
ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun
violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners,
indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a
serious needle-in-the-haystack problem.
-- Gary Kleck, "Point Blank: Handgun Violence In America"
No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather
startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much
less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone,
convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without
restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended,
perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever
before.
-- Colin Greenwood, in the study "Firearms Control", 1972
During waves of terror attacks, Israel's national police chief will
call on all concealed-handgun permit holders to make sure they carry
firearms at all times, and Israelis have many examples where
concealed permit holders have saved lives.
-- John R. Lott
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.. a government and its agents are under no general duty to
provide public services, such as police protection, to any
particular individual citizen...
-- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)
"Why do I use a cigarette holder? Because my doctor told me to stay as far away from cigarettes as possible."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (apocryphal)
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as the Earth]. Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
- James Danforth "Dan" Quayle
"I went to a Subway sandwich shop, and I said, 'Let me have a bun,' but she wouldn't sell me just a bun. She said it had to have something on it. She told me it's against regulations for Subway to sell just a bun-- I guess the two halves ain't supposed to touch. So, I said, 'Alright, put some lettuce on it,' which they did. They said, 'That'll be $1.75.' I said, 'It's for a duck.' They said, 'Alright, well then it's free.' See, I did not know that-- ducks eat for free at Subway. Had I known that, I would've ordered a much larger sandwich. 'Lemme have the steak fajita sandwich, but don't bother ringing it up, it's for a duck. There are six ducks out there, and they all want Sun Chips.'"
- Mitch Hedberg
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"This is the worst thing that's happened to Greece since Alexander the Great died."
- Doug "Nostalgia Critic" Walker, on the film Mamma Mia!
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"Part of what I’m trying to do with this milieu is neither forget real-world problems nor dwell upon them to the point of reader oppression. Because this is a fantasy environment and a sociology that doesn’t need to spring purely from our actual cultural baggage, I am both allowed to and (imho) obligated to deliver some goddamn wish-fulfillment. While the people of Locke’s world can certainly be vicious, short-sighted, and hateful, I’m squarely opposed to the notion that they need to display perfect analogs of our prejudices. I don’t believe our prejudices are permanent or inevitable.
I have difficulty (to provide just one example) with fantasy milieus that, even in the possible service of trying not to ignore important issues, pound the oppression and sexual violation of women into every crevice of the text. This creates a sharp divergence in the reader experience; for readers like me the message is “you can be a central character in a cool adventure, go be brave!” and for people less forthrightly in possession of a Y chromosome the message is “everyone who looks like you might be raped or abused at every turn, go be nervous and agitated!” You don’t need a f#$&ing fantasy novel to help you feel oppressed. You have the f+@~ing news to do that for you.
Same goes for the issue of skin color in Locke’s world. Sure, I could write sharper elements of racism into the books (and there may be instances of such here and there, don’t take this as a blanket refusal to engage with the subject), but then what’s the subtle message? “People who look like Therins or Vadrans, you’re free to imagine yourselves having adventures in this imaginary world, but people with darker skin— sorry, everywhere you go, even in fiction, I’m going to follow you with the same shit you have to think about on the street every day of your lives!” Ugh. I believe I have a duty to the reader as an artist in general and a fantasist in particular, and if all I do is transpose the exact same set of nerve-wracking things you have to deal with in real life into my story, I’m failing you as a fantasist. I’m reinforcing the notion that there can be no progress for us, no respite for you. “Welcome to fantasyland, marginalized folks… where you’ll find the exact same set of problems you thought you were leaving behind when you cracked open the book!”
I think the frictions I’ve built into the world are suitable and reasonable. The phrase “nightskin” is, in most circumstances, not an epithet. Most people in Therin society smoothly integrate with and are happy to work alongside Okanti or Syresti. Some are not. I don’t doubt that the solicitor Salvard was telling the truth in REPUBLIC when he said that many well-off Esparans admire and appreciate the night-skinned… “many” is not “all.” The fact that the portside community of black Esparans harbors distrust for the city watch testifies to that. So tension exists… but not overwhelming, inescapable tension. Not institutionalized, calcified, centuries-old oceans of racism that poison entire continents.
I want to write a fictional world in which a darker character and a lighter character can be in a scene together and just, y’know, have the scene actually be about shipping rates or cooking dinner or what have you, rather than The Burden of the Darker Character who is Darker and the Writer Will Never Let You Forget It. You don’t need a f&$!ing white fantasist to remind you that racial tension exists. Jesus, were you ever in any danger of FORGETTING? But until I pounded it into the story again, you were perhaps in danger of relaxing and enjoying a fictional world in which some small things are less fraught and shitty than they are in our own. You were, perhaps, settling in to enjoy a human adventure, until I insisted, dark-skinned reader, that even your wish fulfillment should come with an extra set of weights. And so we see how even good intentions, if unexamined, can turn out to be condescending and oppressive… and I say f%@~ that, whenever I can.
On a final worldbuilding note, I should also mention one more salient feature of Locke’s world. Nobody has ever successfully colonized anybody else on a grand scale. The Syresti are a black people with arts and sciences equal to the Therins, who successfully resisted every attempt by the Therin Throne to invade them. The Okanti used to be on the same plane, but are now in the midst of a diaspora brought about by natural disaster. The Vadrans were able to seize the northern half of the Therin continent, but never could have pressed south to the population centers of the empire (and were too smart to try). We haven’t met them yet, but the cultures on the other side of the world aren’t set up to take anyone’s shit, either."
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"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"
- Leonard Nimoy
"I never know what's in store for us, and yet here we are. Us. In a store."
- Bobby Bottleservice (Nick Kroll)
From various movies:
"Go ahead, make my day."
"Do you feel lucky?"
"A man has to know his limitations."
"Marines, we are leaving."
"Never tell me the odds."
In reference to a pistol: "I said I didn't have much use for one. I never said I didn't know how to use one."
"Nothing in the 'verse can stop me."
"Shiny."
Him: "You're saying that she's a telepath? That sounds like something out of science fiction."
Her (not the one referred to above): "Honey, we're living on a starship."
"The mounted light infantry will charge."
"They can't charge, they don't have sabres."
"The mounted light infantry will charge."
"The overwhelming majority who are drawn to the occult either scare or bore themselves silly fairly quickly."
- Mark Barrowcliffe
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"Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
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"When I was small, my mother warned me every day never to open the cellar door. She said that horrible, unspeakable things would happen to me if I ever opened the cellar door. I was frightened, but I still so desperately wanted to know what was behind the cellar door. So one day when my mother was away, I summoned up all my courage and opened the cellar door … and you'll never believe the things I saw! Flowers! Trees! Other children!"
- Emo Philips
Jim Gordon: "So, are you coming?"
Harvey Bullock: "Let me answer you in Spanish: no."
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"They say public speaking is the number-one fear in the country. I would've thought the number-one fear would be being buried alive with a severed head. And just before your flashlight's battery dies, the eyes open. But no, apparently it's the public speaking thing."
- Emo Phillips
"I'm not a fatalist. Even if I was, what could I do about it?"
- Emo Phillips
Love Emo.
"How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand." — Emo Phillips
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Love Emo.
"How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand." — Emo Phillips
"And now, my tribute to Elvis Presley: thanks, Elvis."
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"And now, my tribute to Elvis Presley: thanks, Elvis."Love Emo.
"How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand." — Emo Phillips
"Know who I hate more than anyone? Indian givers. No, I take that back."
"When we are thinking like academics, we regard people as elaborate and complicated machines, like computers or cars. But when we revert to being human, we behave more like Basil Fawlty, who, you remember, thrashed his car to teach it a lesson when it wouldn't start on gourmet night."
- Richard Dawkins
"Remember when the aliens came, but they didn't tell all the stupid people, so they wouldn't get scared? ... Oh."
- Steve Martin
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When the nazis took the communists
I kept quiet;
For I was no communist.
When they locked up the social democrats
I kept quiet;
For I was no social democrat.
When they rounded up the union activists
I kept quiet;
For I was not a union member.
When they fetched the jews
I kept quiet;
For I was no jew.
When they came for me
There was no-one left who could protest.
Martin Niemöller
Submarine captain and war hero during World War I
Priest and concentration camp prisoner during World War II
(Second hand) translation via Swedish by me.
When the nazis took the communists
I kept quiet;
For I was no communist.
When they locked up the social democrats
I kept quiet;
For I was no social democrat.
When they rounded up the union activists
I kept quiet;
For I was not a union member.
When they fetched the jews
I kept quiet;
For I was no jew.
When they came for me
There was no-one left who could protest.Martin Niemöller
Submarine captain and war hero during World War I
Priest and concentration camp prisoner during World War II(Second hand) translation via Swedish by me.
Further note: According to the information I had Niemöller became a Lutheran minister sometime after he finished his career as a submarine Captain in the German navy during World War I. Initially he had been somewhat supportive of Adolph Hitler as Hitler rose to power.
What ended up putting Niemöller in a concentration camp was that Hitler wanted to rework and redefine the Christian religion such that it totally supported the Nazi's political program. Niemöller would have none of that and took part in a movement that attempted to distance the Church from Hitler's desires and stay true to the Apostolic traditions.
I don't recall the exact details but Niemöller went into the concentration camp in the late 1930's and survived to be liberated by the American army. They got to him within a day or so before the Nazi's were finally going to execute him.
Given the way certain things are going this could potentially be a cautionary tale ...
"[T]he fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
- Carl Sagan
"In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something. Before a noise, etc, may become a symbol, something must exist for the symbol to symbolize."
-Alfred Korzybski
"See, all of this equipment runs on smoke, and if it breaks, all the smoke leaks out, and that's how we know it doesn't work anymore."
- HVAC guy from a job site I worked at, playing the time-honored game of "f~$$ with the rookie"
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"Hyperbole occurs a quadrillion times a day."
- YouTube user 'Logicked'
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"I'm usually the one screaming for change and innovation. But there's a difference between "innovation" and "putting bacon in a milkshake." And then gift-wrapping the milkshake."
- Noah "Spoony" Antwiler
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"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
-Mel Brooks
"Anyone can shit their pants on purpose, it's not funny. Someone not realizing that they shit their pants-- now that's comedy."
- Noah "Spoony" Antwiler
"The mind does not exist to determine the truth, but to rationalise its prejudices."
~Bertrand Russell"Lose your fear, Take your place in the sun, Turn the world under your feet."
~My Father."I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
~ Stephen Roberts"Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen."
~ Michel de MontaigneAll great truths begin as blasphemies.
~ George Bernard ShawEvery war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
~ George OrwellThe trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
~ Bertrand RussellYou know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.
~ [Usenet]Men who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.
~ VoltaireThe nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
~ George OrwellHumanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
~ Tom RobbinsCould a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?
~ Ron PattersonForeign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country.
~ Gary Hart, BC Comic Strip
wow. hate religion much?
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"Violence is not the answer. Unless the question is 'What works almost every time and gets the job done for good?'"
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wow. hate religion much?
Welcome to the Internet. You'll see a lot of that.
Might be a repeat here. Thirty pages dating back to 2007... yeah.
"There is great disorder under heaven and the situation is excellent." - Mao Zedong/Tse-Tung
"Cowards won't show and the weak will die."- Some bumper sticker for a bike race I saw back in the 1990s.
"Make your peace with ugly."- Me, to someone new to life in Alaska. (On the subject of appropriate winter attire for forty below)
"Probably not today."- Rural Alaska conventional wisdom as to when that thing you ordered is going to arrive.
"Aside from "Danger," my middle name is "Charm."
- Edwin Jarvis (James D'Arcy), Marvel's Agent Carter
"I don't even know what to make of this, man. What the hell is a VCR?"
- "Snow" (Brian Lewis), The Spoony Experiment